MS. INFORMATION: Getting there isn’t half the fun

By Maria Prato-Gaines, Staff Writer
   It’s been a little over a year since I made the long trek to Jersey from Oklahoma and although I’ve had many gripes about East Coast living, my biggest thus far would have to be the roads.
   Granted, some might call me directionally challenged — my editor couldn’t begin to count the number of times I’ve called him, hysterically crying on a profanity-laced tirade, because I’m lost in some neck of the state.
   Yep, I’m the girl who, against all advice, traveled cross-country using MapQuest, couldn’t read a map to save her life and manages to get lost with the aid of a GPS. (No one takes me seriously, but I swear it’s plotting against me.)
   But when you throw a challenge like the Jersey roadways at someone who already has a navigational handicap, or in my case multiple handicaps, is it possible that they might actually rise to the occasion?
   In fact, my mishaps began on my very first night in the Garden State, when I got a crash-course in Jersey driving.
   After driving for several days and thousands of miles, I found myself five minutes away from our new home when a drunken driver plowed into the back of me, totaling both my and my husband’s cars as we tried to navigate our way through the poorly lit and scantly labeled area surrounding Fort Dix.
   I tried to leave the accident on Route 68, as I continued to tell myself that my Jersey welcome wagon was just a fluke, but I soon realized that it was really just the beginning.
   Traumatized and feeling very much like a foreigner, it was at least two weeks before I learned the art of making a left-hand turn.
   To quote my blunt, yet lovable, grandfather who visited last summer, “I figured out why they call these things jug-handles — a jug-head must have thought them up.”
   Although the comment was made in jest, I have to admit my Nonno had a point.
   I’m sure that the jug-handles have their positives, but it’s their lack of consistency that drives me insane. It no longer becomes the safer alternative, when you’re making a last second maneuver, sometimes across multiple lanes to the right or maybe the left, in order to make a turn.
   But if the jug-handles weren’t confusing enough, the inconsistencies seem to stretch across the state in the form of toll roads.
   First off, I’ve always prided myself on avoiding these roads whenever possible and therefore have had little contact with them even out of state. To me, it seems like highway robbery to pay to drive on a road, when my tax dollars should have already provided me with quality paved thoroughfares to travel on. It’s also like flying on coach vs. first class: not only can I not afford the more expensive alternative on a starving journalist’s salary but I feel smarter for having saved a penny, or two, while still arriving at the same destination as someone who splurged.
   But in New Jersey, it’s become obvious that taking the toll roads is pretty much unavoidable. For my first experience, getting on the N.J. Turnpike seemed easy enough. It was the getting off part that was a little bit more problematic. Maybe I wouldn’t have arrived to a job interview at The Cranbury Press 15 minutes late had I known that there was a directional key on the back of my ticket stub. But in my state of ignorant bliss, I got off on Exit 8 as opposed to 8A, and eventually called my future boss to talk me through the back roads.
   Then, just when I think I’ve mastered the whole toll road challenge, I’m forced onto the Atlantic City Expressway. On the expressway, instead of a cheery face greeting me at my exit, waiting to take my ticket and give me my change, the expressway wanted my money up front. (I light heartedly thought, maybe it had run a credit check prior to my arrival.) Not only did it take me a good minute to figure out what the strange bucket staring at me from the port side was for, but it took at least another half minute for me to comprehend that it wanted exact change.
   I made my way to the change machine located too far to reach from the confines of my vehicle and awkwardly fumbled my dollar bill into the slot.
   Meanwhile, at least 10 very annoyed natives with their pockets probably jingling with piles of change were impatiently waiting behind me, laying on their horns every so often just so I’d know that they were still there. If any of you are out there reading this, believe me, I knew.
   All-in-all, I was thankful that I had survived my turnpike and expressway experiences, but my most challenging toll road test was yet to come — the Garden State Parkway.
   Unlike my previous encounters, the parkway seems to take a different approach — we’ll call it a forced honor system.
   Most of you may know, because you’ve probably driven on it, that every so often on the parkway you’ll slow down to throw some change in one of those ominous buckets. To my surprise, I managed to do just that without any major mishaps.
   But then a second bucket appeared and I thought to myself, wait a minute, I already paid. Part of me said, to be on the safe-side, maybe I should throw in some change. But my voice of reason was soon drowned out by the little devil that’s constantly hovering over my shoulder. It was like he was screaming at the top of his lungs, “Oh yeah, who’s going to make me?”
   You have to admit, the parkway’s tolls, absent of any gated exits or entrances, can be a little misleading, as I naively believed that I would be one of the lucky ones to hold onto my hard earned quarters.
   And as I whizzed past a herd of cars waiting to pay their tolls, I’m a little ashamed to admit now that I said to myself, “Suckers!”
   However, reality suddenly checked my rebellious attitude when I received a ticket in the mail two weeks later. Attached was a picture of the rear of my Jeep, and a notice saying I had something like 30 days to pay the $25 fine.
   If you’re out there saying this girl doesn’t sound so bright, I won’t disagree with you.
   But what I will say is that looking back on all my mishaps on what I once considered some very intimidating highways and bi-ways, all I can try to do is search for the bigger picture.
   What I’ve come to understand is that Jersey roads aren’t all too different from my life. Maybe I can’t rise to the occasion every time life sends me down a dead-end road and I’m probably going to get lost a time or two. The important part is that I’m learning as I go and with each wrong turn I consider myself a little bit wiser than I was the day before.
Maria Prato-Gaines is staff writer for The Cranbury Press. She can be reached at [email protected].